John Cruickshank VC

John Cruickshank (1920–2025) was a founder member of the Greenbank Scout troop in 1933, and the last surviving Victoria Cross recipient of the Second World War.

John Cruickshank VC in later life, standing with a walking stick and wearing a Scout necker, beside another man in a suit

John Cruickshank VC in later life.

1933

A Greenbank Scout

John Alexander Cruickshank was born in Aberdeen on 20 May 1920. In 1929 his family moved to Greenbank in Edinburgh, and in January 1933, aged twelve, he became one of the six founder members of a new Scout troop at Greenbank Parish Church.

Scouting at Greenbank has carried on ever since under slightly different names. Today, the Group is the 4th Braid.

1944

17 July 1944

By 1944 John was flying Catalina flying boats with 210 Squadron, RAF Coastal Command, from Sullom Voe in Shetland. That July his crew was providing anti-submarine cover for ships involved in an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz.

They found a German U-boat on the surface and attacked, flying straight through fire from its anti-aircraft gun. On the first pass the depth charges didn’t release, so John brought the aircraft round for a second run. This time the charges straddled the submarine, now believed to have been U-361, and it sank with all 52 of its crew.

The German gunfire had been deadly accurate. The navigator, John Dixon, was killed, and four others were wounded, including both pilots. John himself had been hit in seventy-two places, with two serious wounds to his lungs and ten to his legs.

Flying through the night, it took the damaged aircraft five and a half hours to return to Sullom Voe. John’s injuries were so serious that he never flew in command of an aircraft again. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1945–76

After the war

John returned to his pre-war career in banking, working in India and Pakistan with Grindlays Bank before retiring in 1976.

2023

“Glad to have been a Scout”

“I was glad to have been a Scout and enjoy the benefits of the movement.”

That was John’s message to the Greenbank troop for its 90th anniversary in 2023. He died in August 2025, aged 105, the last surviving recipient of the Victoria Cross from the Second World War.

Sources and further reading: Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia

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